DIY Photo booth using Raspberry Pi for your parties

If you are looking for some super cool DIY projects using Raspberry Pi, you are in the right place. Am pretty sure that this cool Raspberry Pi Photo booth will make a great addition to your party. Before I proceed I want to convey my thanks to Chris Evans for permitting me to write on his behalf and share his work in our website. Here you can read the original project article from his site Drumminhands.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Intermediate

This Photo booth is not just meant for taking photos, its equipped with better features that makes them unique. This project uses a Camera module operated by Raspberry Pi to capture photos and then turn them into beautiful GIF images. And the coolest feature is it will automatically upload the converted GIF images into your Tumblr account with ease, sounds cool isn’t it.

OPTIONAL PARTS:

TTL cable to troubleshoot or make changes without disturbing the setup.

Pi Cobbler

USB power panel mount

Ethernet panel mount

USB port panel mount

ALGORITHM OF PHOTO BOOTH:

Start the device

Turn on all the LED’s on the front to indicate the device is getting started and turn if off after few moments

Await Arcade button press from the guests.

Once the button is pressed blink the “Get ready” light asking the guests to get ready

Display the real time video preview on the monitor

Blink the “Pose” LED for few seconds to ask the guest to pose for the photo.

Capture a photo and save it in .jpg format with filename marked with time stamp.

Repeat four times

Process all the captured images

Turn off the video preview in the monitor

Now blink the uploading light to indicate that the photo is getting uploaded to Tumblr

Combine all the four images into a animated GIF

Upload the converted GIF image to Tumblr

Stop blinking the “Uploading” light and lit up the “Done” light for few seconds.

Play the GIF images in the screen few times to guests to see the outcome of their photo session.

Now await another Arcade button press.

Shut down the Raspberry Pi once done.

DESIGN:

Here is the design of Photo booth which shows the connection of optional TTL: cable and Arcade button integrated with LED. Connect other LED’s similarly to the GPIO’s of the Pi (Omitted in the design).

SETTING UP THE PHOTO BOOTH:

I decided to assemble all the necessary parts inside a wooden box. This will give a cool real Photo booth look to my project. Affixing the Pi in a glass panel, I have affixed and connected other parts together and assembled them in side the wooden box.

Mount the entire setup over a tripod and make sure it is stable. You can also use PA speaker mount for this which offers good level of stability. Also place it where the guests can pose for the photos with ease. Prepare a good lighting atmosphere for the guests.

SETTING UP THE RASPBERRY PI:

If you are just getting started with your Pi, first of all you need to install Noobs on the SD card

Now you need to configure your Pi to display video preview in the monitor